Lost and Found, The Story of the Hidden
by CoffeeElitist
Summary: Tohru fell down a cliff, as she felt the ground before her collapse, sending her plummeting downhill. Kyo's rejection rang in her head like a clock chiming time's end. She wanted to forget. So she closed the lid of memories. Yuki cannot just sit by and watch her suffer. So he did what Kyo didn't.Yukiru.This takes place afer Volume 21 of the Furuba manga. It does contain spoilers.
1. Chapter 1

**I am a humungous fan of Fruits Basket. I have read the manga, time and time again, and cannot get enough of it. But I am also a tremendous supporter of Yuki and Tohru. When I read the manga from the beginning, I had always thought that Yuki would end up with Tohru, but suddenly Kyo ended up with her, and Yuki had some girl from the student council, named Machi. I don't hate Machi in any way, but I honestly think that the best for Yuki is Tohru. So this story is definitely one filled with spoilers, taking place after Volume 21, but with a twist, biased towards Yuki.**

* * *

Tohru lay down on the hospital bed, unconscious, her pulse was returning to normal and the doctors had predicted that following the proper treatment she would be just fine. _Just fine? That was an understatement._

Meanwhile at school, Yuki was leaning against the wall in the hallway, next to Haru. He watched Uotani Arisa and Hanajima cornering Kyo, preparing for his murder.

"Did you hear, Arisa? He says he's going to visit. How sweet!" Hanajima, giggled darkly.

"Hanjima, that just makes us feel warm inside doesn't it?" Arisa said, smiling.

"I almost fell in love with him just now. Oh no!" Hanajima mocked. Arisa cackled.

Kyo looked down, ashamed. "Look, if you guys want to say something - " Kyo started.

"WHAT KIND OF DELUSION IS THAT?! SAYING YOU'RE GOING TO VISIT WITH THAT GUILTY FACE OF YOURS?!" Arisa screamed. Her eyes glimmered dangerously, her fists clenched ready to beat him up. Arisa turned to Hanajima. "Bring me the yari (a long traditional Japanese sword)!"

Kyo sighed._ How long was he going to endure this treatment?_ He felt guilty enough.

Hanajima just smiled, her black nails held her chin, thinking. "No, not the yari." She dropped her hands and glared icily at Kyo. "A yari would leave evidence." Kyo felt chills running down his spine. He regretted rejecting her already.

"How could you understand?! You called her delusional!" Arisa spat.

Yuki eyed the whole scene calmly, but inside he was boiling with anger. Once again, Kyo had it all. He had friends, had a loving father-figure and the worst and best of all he had Tohru's love. After all these years, being cloaked in darkness with no hope of escape, he found someone who was willing to extend a hand to him. Tohru Honda was his savior. Her voice, her eyes, her long auburn hair, her soft hands and the most enticing of all, that captured his heart, his soul, stole his breath away was her smile. He lived on that smile. Ever since he met her, he woke up every morning yearning to see that smile. He skipped home daily after his student council meetings, looking forward to those smiles. It lifted his heart, his spirits and just for a brief second where she smiled at him, his whole world seemed like a brighter place, void of hate and rejection. He was delusional, he knew, but he couldn't let go of these thoughts that plagued his mind when he saw that smile. Her smile. Her pure, gentle smile.

But those smiles could have never been for him. He could never receive the beauty of it as Kyo had. Because when she smiled at Kyo, there was something more to those smiles. It was love. And oh! How he wished he could see the same smile being directed towards him. But no, she loved Kyo. The cursed cat. She loved the damned Kyo. And yet, as he watched from his bedroom that rainy morning, Yuki watched Kyo reject her. That ungrateful bastard! He pushed away her love and her smiles.

His insides boiled with anger and spite towards Kyo more than ever before, more than when he had met him.

"WE BAN YOU FROM VISITING TOHRU!" Arisa cried.

Hanajima softened her gaze as she looked at Kyo. "Tohru doesn't blame you."

Kyo turned away guiltily.

"Do you think she's asking for an apology?"

Yuki knew Tohru's forgiving nature, loved it, adored it, but at the moment he almost hated it. She would forgive Kyo's actions towards her, his cruel words and let it go.

Haru looked at Yuki who seemed to be lost in thought. "Kyo isn't going to visit the hospital then, just because Arisa and Hanajima banned him?"

Yuki got up and began to leave. "It seems so." Yuki left irritated.

"He's an idiot."

Yuki glanced at Kyo, who was looking down on the floor, his eyes deep with regret. "I know," he muttered under his breath.

Yuki entered the student council meeting room. He was tired, exhausted from all the excitement and anxiety that had took place in his backyard for the past few days. He was tired of the rejected that never took place, but knew was there before it happened. His ability to love was almost lost until she came, but Tohru had chosen another, in the end not returning his.

He sat at a desk and lay his head down, looking at the clear blue sky hovering above outside. The tender summer breeze played with his hair, as he slowly closed his eyes. His troubling muse He was grudgingly brought him to Dream Land, and he was lost.

* * *

_(flashback)_

"You don't know anything! You don't know what I've done!" Kyo yelled at Tohru. The rain started to pick up and it was now beating heavily down on them.

Kyo shot Tohru a venomous look, leaving her frozen and cold. Then his look softened and looked away. "She shouldn't have died."

Tohru looked at Kyo quizzically. "What – "

"The truth is, I knew your mother. I know your mother. I saw her that day. I was there on the day of the accident. I immediately recognized her from the past. I knew her when I was younger. I saw car coming at fast speed. I thought that if I reached out to her in time, I could have saved her. But then I stopped."

Tohru drew a sharp intake of breath. Her soaking wet clothes were ignored.

"But I didn't. I only had to take her arm, and it would have saved her life." Kyo clenched his fists. "But I didn't! I was afraid that if I grabbed her, I would have turned into a cat and everyone would have thought me as a monster. And everyone would have known that I was not… human."

Tohru's eyes were brimming with tears. She had spent days, weeks reliving the horrible ordeal of her mother's death on what had really happened, speculating, wondering, but now that it hit her, she felt frozen, unsure of what to do. She wanted to say something, words of comfort for in her heart she had a new special "someone". Her most precious person was someone else. She was sad, not for her mother, but for the sad person that stood before her, trembling as he told this story.

"I let her die," Kyo finished, bowing his head. "I felt as if I was worth more than your mother's life. What is wrong with me?! I chose myself over a life!"

Tohru just stood there, listening to Kyo's confession. So patiently listening. Like she always did.

"I killed her."

* * *

**I am still contemplating on where this story is heading, but I do have an idea for an ending. It's the best one. Yuki ends up with Tohru! But it doesn't mean that I love rivals. Momiji is one. I was thinking of Hatori as one since Tohru reminds Hatori so much of Kana, but I'm not sure how that is going to end up. So... work in progress. I welcome any suggestion to improve the story-line. I think I'd need it. **


	2. Chapter 2

Yuki awoke with a start. Rubbing his eyes, he looked outside and saw the soft colours of orange and light pink slowly seeping through the window. He glanced at his watch and groaned. He was late.

He had walked through that scene countless times in his dreams, never allowing him to forget what had happened. He remembered watching from behind the siding doors, the shivering silhouette of Tohru standing in front of Kyo, clinging on to a thin thread of hope.

Scratching his head, he looked around. He was alone. Everyone had left. Nobody waited for him.

Yuki walked to the front gates of his school, stopped, and took one last glance behind. He spotted the flower bush in which Tohru would occasionally wait for him as he finished his student council meetings. He pictured her smiling face that seemed to lighten up when he walked towards her. It seemed like she was delighted to see him, but maybe, just maybe she was just glad that she didn't have to wait anymore.

Yuki sighed and continued his journey home.

_Tired of waiting? Just like everyone else._

But a nagging voice of hope whispered to him,_ "But she kept on waiting. Day after day, she kept on waiting."_

That annoying small voice of hope pissed him off. Because as much as he tried to smother that thought away, he hoped and had wished for it to be true as well.

When he got home, he saw Shigure sitting at the front porch as if nothing had happened, sipping a cup of black coffee. "Yuki! You're home I was starting to miss you! Oh boy! Am I hungry? You know… I got tired of waiting for you to return so I attempted to cook a little something to settle my grumbling stomach. I proved something new today. It turns out I am a terrible cook."

Yuki opened the front door to see an amazing mess of black soot coming from the kitchen.

"SHIGUREEEE~!"

In the end, Shigure and Yuki ordered a pizza. Shigure ate the pizza whistling, happy and content that he could finally feed his bottomless pit of a stomach. "It seems," Shigure began. "That nothing can quite quench my hunger as much as Tohru's cooking."

Yuki didn't answer. He kept on eating, pretending he didn't hear. "Where's that stupid cat?" he asked.

"Don't you miss Tohru's cooking?"

"He's in his cave isn't he? I'll go call him to eat." Yuki got up to leave.

"My favourite dish of hers is the onigiri!"

"DON'T ACT LIKE SHE'S GONE!" Yuki snapped, his eyes burned fuming with anger.

Shigure paused a moment before setting his pizza on the plate. He looked thoughtfully at his pizza. "Call Kyo down to eat," he said. "I have something to tell you two."

* * *

Tohru stared at the nervous looking woman standing at her hospital ward doorway. Her jet-black hair gleamed against the soft kiss of dusk. She peeked in inside, as if afraid that Tohru might suddenly yell at her.

"Erm, would you like to come in?" Tohru asked the woman. Akito Sohma nodded slowly and finally stepped inside the room.

"T-tohru Honda?"

"Yes?"

"D-do you remember what you said that?"

Tohru looked thoughtful. "What do you mean?"

"On that day, you said that you wanted to be friends!" Akito blurted. Akito fidgeted with her fingers.

"Eh! Really?" Tohru chuckled softly. "My memory must have been so bad that I must have forgotten. I apologize. Sorry!"

_Forgot? __What if she rejected her now?_

"What do you mean you forgot?" Akito almost cried out.

"I'm not really sure," Tohru confessed. "But if you want, we could start over!" A look of delight appeared on Tohur's face.

Tohru extended her hand, wrapped in bandages. "Would you like to be friends?" Her smile stretched from ear to ear, plastered on her naïve, innocent face. She looked like a fool, in one's eyes. Akito would have perceived it that way, once. But on that day, she saw Tohru's smiling face as pure and sincere as she had never seen. It frightened her.

Akito slowly approached the bed, raising her hand to accept the offering of friendship.

Minutes later, Akito left the room in a daze. After shutting the door behind her, she looked down at her own two hands that were shaking uncontrollably. "I did it," she said. "I made a friend." But realization suddenly hit her, and she was looking around frantically.

_What did she mean when she said she forgot? Is something wrong with her body?_

"Hotari," she whispered._ He must be able to help. He's a doctor. He must know the answer._

And she started picking up her pace, in search of the Sohma family doctor.

* * *

Hotari clutched Akito's shoulders in disbelief as the tears streamed down her face, telling the story of what happened. Gasping for breath, she managed to say the words, "Please help her." Words she never thought she would one day come to beg from Hatori.

"Let go of her, Hari," Shigure said, releasing Akito from Hatori's grip and held Akito tight, comforting her. "Hurting Akito won't help Tohru."

Hatori ran his fingers though his hair in disbelief. All his life he had taken away people's memories so that these people who suffered due to those memories bore the burden of sadness and distress would be able to get on with their lives. Memories were like treasure chests stored in one's soul. Once sealed, it may never appear again. The treasure chest would be there, but it'd be hidden. Not even an 'X' would mark its possible existence. The treasure chest of history, story and life would lay in the soul, and within time, it would just fade away buried by the new memories. It'd be forgotten. But that was the point of sealing it in the first place.

That was Hatori Sohma's gift. It was a cruel gift, but sometimes, for some people, a blessing in disguise. And now, Akito had approached him with a request almost impossible to accomplish.

"Restore someone's memory?" Hatori said, breathing every word.

Memories only brought pain. Memories only dragged one to misery. He didn't understand the significance of it. Perhaps that was why he had always obeyed Akito's orders in the past when she had asked him to erase the memories of Yuki's friends, Kana's memories, Momiji's mothers' and so many others. He believed that memories were replaceable, like books on a shelf. That empty spot in the corner of a shelf could always be replaced by another book and another and another, up to the point where one could not even tell the difference. Life would still go on. Perhaps, it'd be missed, but it wasn't impossible to live. Sometimes, life would be better.

Yet, this time, when he found out the truth, he started to question those principles.

He had only known to take it away; but never to return them.

Even if he wanted to, he couldn't. He could only take and take, but never give back. He was thief. He stole people's memories and never returned them. How cruel he was.

Hatori stood silently in the middle of his office in comprehension of who he really was. Only Akito's soft sobs muffled against Shigure's chest was heard in the room. He once again, felt so utterly useless even with a gift like his.

"I… can't return people's memories," Hatori finally said, trying to be composed. "I can only take them away."

Somewhere outside the room, leaning against the door, was a purple-eyed young boy. Shocked and shaken by what he overheard, he walked away before they could find him. He picked up his pace once he left the Sohma residence and his legs, step by step began to churn faster and faster under him. He looked down on the ground and saw a whiz of his own legs running. One step at a time as he rushed to the hospital. That was the only place in which he could think if heading.

* * *

**(At the hospital)**

Yuki begged the nurse to allow him to see Tohru. After, seeing that the nurse's efforts in trying to stop were fruitless and seeing the desperate look in his face, she caved in. Yuki knocked softly on the door with the label, "Tohru Honda" hanging proudly on it.

"Erm… come in"

Her voice was soft and sweet to his ears. It was like a long lost melody that he had finally found.

He opened the door and stepped inside the room. "Sorry to be bothering you, Honda-san," Yuki said.

"Ah! Sohma-kun!" Tohru looked at him surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"Honda-san," Yuki began. "Do you remember me?"

Tohru stared at him, puzzled by the question. "We're classmates, Sohma-kun."

He looked at her with begging eyes; eyes, asking her to remember, to tell him that she didn't forget anything, that she remembered the days they spent with each other, the moments when she taught him to smile, the times when she saved him.


End file.
